Epca exempts 19 complexes from diesel genset ban

The Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (Epca) on Wednesday exempted 19 residential and commercial complexes in Gurugram and Faridabad from

The Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (Epca) on Wednesday exempted 19 residential and commercial complexes in Gurugram and Faridabad from the ban on diesel generator sets, till November 30. The Supreme Court-appointed Epca also granted permission to Information Technology (IT) and other commercial institutions to use diesel gensets as a secondary source of power.

HT Image

A letter was issued by Bhure Lal, chairman, Epca, stating that in 15 cases —14 residential complexes and 1 commercial complex — Epca is granting exemption as requested by the Haryana power department and this will be applicable only for the period up to November 30.

Four other complexes, including a mall in Gurugram, which are fully dependent on diesel gensets due to non-compliance of electrical inadequacies, have also been granted exemption till November 30. However, Epca is awaiting affidavits in the four instances.

“We have noted that DHBVN {Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam} has assured that it will resolve the matter within 8-10 days and post interim electricity supply will be given to them by November 30 and affidavits will be filed within 8-10 days positively,” reads the letter.

Diesel gensets are banned under the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap), which came into force on October 15, to tackle air pollution from slipping to ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’ category during winter months.

Earlier this week, the matter was reviewed by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar. As reported by HT on Monday, the Haryana power department submitted affidavits and wrote to Epca seeking exemption till November 30 for 19 complexes. On October 15, Epca asked for the affidavits with schedules for each complex, which are fully and partially dependent on diesel gensets. The detailed affidavits by the builders were submitted by the power department to Epca on Monday.

As per the letter, the number of exemptions has been brought down to around 20 this year, which is a big reduction from the 209 applications filed last year.

Besides, the Haryana government also asked for permission to use diesel gensets as a secondary source of power in case of disruption in process industries and IT companies. Officials of the power department said that these industries run on servers, for which uninterrupted power supply is a must.

Epca granted permission for the use of diesel gensets as a secondary source, but clearly stated that this could lead to misuse as generators could easily become the primary source of power without enforcement. It has asked these industries to maintain a logbook on the use of diesel gensets.

“It will be verified fortnightly or monthly by the power department. The aim of this will be to ensure that in this period, there is an improvement in the power supply that diesel gensets are not required to be used. The state power department will have to submit a report to Epca at the end of December and February,” the letter stated.

The pollution control body also advised all commercial set ups to move to cleaner sources of distributed power, such as gas-based generators or solar-powered systems.